The setting for the play is a public ladies restroom in England in 1969. The location is never specified but is probably London, because of the use of attendants in the restroom, as well as the office girls who frequent the facility.

The parade of men who assemble the restroom interior is important, because they symbolize the societal paradigm of men building institutions in which women must conform. The fixtures and accessories are appointed by men who assume to know what the women frequenting the facility will need, just as the author's point about men making decisions for women in most aspects of their lives at the time. It is also symbolic that the men are dressed in pristine white clothes and bow to each other in their unsullied sense of self importance.

Using the public restroom as a background, the author shows a representative sample of women in...